1. Field of the Invention
One disclosed aspect of the embodiments relates to a signal transmission system, a photoelectric conversion apparatus, an image pickup system, and a drive method for the photoelectric conversion apparatus. In particular, an aspect of the embodiments relates to a signal transmission system provided with a plurality of analog-to-digital (A/D) converters that are arranged in parallel.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image pickup apparatus is proposed which is provided with A/D converters on respective columns of a pixel array where pixels are arranged in a matrix or on plural columns and configured to perform a signal processing in parallel. Digital data obtained through an A/D conversion is stored in a memory, and thereafter, the stored digital data is selected by a scanning circuit to be output from the image pickup apparatus.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-147684 discloses that plural memories are set as a block, and a wiring from which data is output (hereinafter, which will be referred to as data output line) is allocated for each block. In this specification, a configuration is disclosed in which selection circuits are provided for the respective block wirings, and either digital data output from the associated block wiring or digital data output from another selection circuit is selected to be output.
However, according to the configuration disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-147684, in addition to the wiring for each block, a wiring between the selection circuits is also used. For that reason, not only an impediment is posed on a higher speed in a data transfer, but also a size of a layout area is increased.